Beauty and the Beast

Sic Semper Tyrannis

May 27th, 1942. It is the start of a normal day in the heart of Prague. A vast majority of the citizens have been conscripted into the workforce by the Germans, and severe punishments are meted out to those who skip their shifts. As a result, the streets are always devoid of life for the greater part of the day.
But not today.
Today, the silence is interrupted by the airy sound of bicycle wheels on the rough pavement of the sidewalk. Two men cycle down a hill on a main road in the Holešovice district of Prague, applying their brakes in unison at the bottom of the hill. The road curves into a treacherous hairpin turn here, one that requires any car coming up the other side of the hill to slow drastically to a crawl in order to execute the turn. This flaw in the lay of the land will give these men the outcome they desire from today's mission.
These men aren't ordinary Czech civilians who have been given a permit not to go to work because of debilitating illnesses that render them unfit as factory workers. Yes, they are dressed in civilian clothes and yes, they carry the appropriate papers, but these men aren't who anyone would think they are. Far from it, to be exact. These are SOE agents, sent by the Czech government in exile to assassinate one of the most hated—and feared—members of the Nazi elite, Reinhard Heydrich.
The assassins reach the nearby tram stop at the bottom of the hill and disembark from their bicycles, leaning them against a nearby telegraph pole. They are both wearing the rumpled clothes of factory workers, and caps to hide the color of their hair. The stockier and broader of the two men has a camel colored Macintosh raincoat draped over his shoulders, which he immediately shrugs off and throws over the briefcase. His face is drawn and pinched, mounting rage sparking and flaring in his eyes. His companion lightly pats his back and whispers something consoling to him before making a vague gesture across the street. At the top of the hill, another man emerges from behind a lamppost and sprints down the road and across the street lined with tracks for the tram that usually passed through. He greets his two companions breathlessly and the three have a seemingly heated, important discussion full of arm waving and gesticulating. One can't help but notice that the man with the raincoat seems to be the most animated of the three during this quick strategizing session. When he gestures with his hands or looks up from his briefcase to make a point, there is a certain vigor to him that is unmatched by his comrades—almost like he has some sort of personal vendetta against this Reinhard Heydrich, and doesn't just hate him for overrunning his homeland and terrorizing his countrymen.
The three men scatter in a matter of minutes. The one with the raincoat, Josef Gabcik, continues to fumble beneath his raincoat. He then stands up and slings the raincoat over his arm, his briefcase, which we can now see is stuffed with grass, still at his feet.
On the other side of the street, hiding in the shadows of the trees lining his side of the road, is his comrade, Jan Kubiš. He too reaches into his briefcase and pulls out a grenade, one designed specifically for staging attacks on cars. He begins to prime it, looping his finger through the pin of the grenade. He needs to be ready to throw it at a moment's notice.
On the top of the hill, their third and last comrade, Josef Valcik, rubs his impromptu signal, a shaving mirror, against the sleeve of his shirt until it shines. It is he who will wait atop the hill and signal the approach of Heydrich, on the way to Hradcany Castle via his normal route of travel.

Reinhard Heydrich has reached numerous great milestones in life. Within weeks, he would be leaving this stinking shit pile of a country for Paris, the City of Light. He was set to rule over France as its new Reichsprotektor, and had been so sure that he would be transferred very soon that he had felt it appropriate to let the remark, "With my arrival in France, consider the death sentence pronounced on its Jews," slip to an aide. There was also talk about him being promoted to Oberstgruppenfuhrer, a title only held by Josef "Sepp" Dietrich, Hitler's chauffeur and bodyguard. His ascent through the ranks of the Nazi hierarchy was at its peak, and subsequently was cause for celebration. For he had lingered in the gardens of Panenské Brezany much longer than usual, playfully boxing with his sons Klaus and Heider. His wife Lina Heydrich, heavily pregnant with their fourth child, stood on the balcony of the master bedroom of the house, holding their infant daughter Silke in her arms.
Neither of them acted at all like they had been responsible for the callous murder of a baby boy only moments old a few weeks prior. Nor did they seem to care that for all they knew the Czech girl known as Sophie Gabcik was currently locked in an unventilated, dark room in Bulovka Hospital, a room that had been strictly quarantined by medical staff under the orders of SS officials that conducted a thorough sweep of the place. All alone, deprived of food, water, and fresh air, and with hefty doses of curare still in her veins, she would die a slow, painful death. It was the fitting end to a "home wrecking Czech upstart of a whore" such as her, or so Lina Heydrich had put it. If Reinhard had ever been against such drastic and barbaric measures, he hadn't said anything.
He didn't love the girl at all. Rather, he loved the girl she looked like—the one true love of his life, Silke Weber. If anything, locking the Czech in that room had been the hardest thing he had ever done. But his marriage came first, and he could never forget what he owed to Lina.
At about ten o'clock, Reinhard Heydrich picked his daughter up and kissed her for what he didn't know would be the last time, tousled his sons' blond heads for the final time, and climbed into his dark green open-top Mercedes for what would be his last drive from Panenské Brezany.